Description

From a prison cell to the cutting edge of cybersecurity, one man rewrites the meaning of a second chance.

When Derek Johnston walked out of prison after ten years, he had nothing—no plan, no support network, and not even the basic digital skills most people take for granted. All he had was a fire in his chest and a dangerous kind of hope: the belief that he could build a future no one expected him to have.

What followed is one of the most unlikely and inspiring transformations of the modern tech world.

Armed with relentless discipline forged behind bars, Derek taught himself everything from scratch—Linux, servers, forensics, penetration testing, networking, automation, and advanced exploitation techniques. He went from not knowing how to use a computer to becoming a respected cybersecurity investigator, a bug bounty researcher earning critical acknowledgments, and the founder of his own security company, LTH Cybersecurity.

His journey is more than technical mastery. It's grit, humor, love, and the refusal to die the same man he was.